Quotes from Ann Widdecombe

History is not merely a procession of people in fancy dress fighting wars. It is crucially the story of man's evolution from grunting cave dweller to serious thinker, from cruelly retributive law to merciful law, from casual barbarism to care and compassion.

Britain must govern Britain and nothing less will do.

My father was in the admiralty and he rose to a very senior position. He was very formidable; a bit grumpy, but I loved him dearly.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

I suspect my own journey to Brexit has closely followed that of Britain's. I had doubts, then I decided we should stay in, then I had very serious doubts as our island began to sink under a tide of regulations and our government lost control of the immigration system.

There is nothing like a long, breezy walk on Dartmoor to make me feel I have arrived in heaven. The beauty of creation is all around and I feel closer to the creator Himself.

The regime in too many prisons is one of idleness, and locking up someone from such a background in idleness virtually guarantees re-offending. Instead there needs to be a full day's work every weekday in either the workshops or the education department or preferably a mixture of both.

My mother always said bringing me up was a tiring business, which I 'believe. For instance, when we lived in Singapore, the Chinese staff used to leave their slippers at the bottom of the steps. Every night, I used to go and remove their slippers. I stopped being tiresome at about 14.

It is quite wrong that one group of people should regularly and deliberately flout the law, boast about it and get away with it.

Secularism has no central goal, it's just promoting endless relativism. That's why there is a huge moral drift in the country. Everybody is infallible except the Pope, if you like.

The postcode lottery means that the level of care you get differs hugely around the country, and the health service simply cannot meet every demand that is put upon it.

Some of the finest comedies have chosen the Church as its subject and would indeed make most Christians laugh, give or take the occasional wince as a barb goes home. I have very fond memories of 'Our Man at St Marks' and long for the day when it is released on DVD but I won't hold my breath.

One of my best moments was getting a constituent out of jail in Morocco, by which of course I mean I got him released not that I sprung him.

Gentle mockery or sharp satire aimed at Christians and their leaders have been replaced by abuse of Christianity itself.

Our state ceremonies have a religious foundation. We have compulsory religious education. And the Church should be a moral guardian. We have in this country a long Christian heritage and Christian culture and we shouldn't be in too much of a hurry to give that up.

If someone calls you fat and you are fat, then it will be hurtful only if you feel you should not be fat.

I left the Church of England because there was a huge bundle of straw. The ordination of women was the last straw, but it was only one of many. For years I had been disillusioned by the Church of England's compromising on everything. The Catholic Church doesn't care if something is unpopular.

In my schooldays, I was Titch, Skinny and Freckles. These days, I answer to Karloff, Fatty or even Twiggy from my more sarcastic friends. If they called me Ann I should wonder what I had done to offend them.

If any further proof were needed that the Liberal Democrats live up to neither part of their name, then the treatment of Roman Catholic Robert Flello would have provided it. They were glad enough to have him when he defected from Labour but have now deselected him because he supports neither abortion nor gay marriage.

What I do not like is militant secularism, whereby anything is acceptable as long as it's not Christian.

Our knowledge of animals and their behaviour has come a long way. We can no longer justify imprisoning them, robbing them of everything that is natural and important to them and turning them into objects of ridicule for our amusement.

I think the rest of the world will think we're made, and indeed we are. We've turned out the greatest Prime Minister in the post war years simply because of short term nerves.

The political classes are despised when they deal in sound bites, embrace tokenistic campaigns and feather their own nests while trying to please all of the people all of the time.

I'd rather form my own party than ever join Ukip. We could call it the Widdy Mob. I'm joking.